"ШИНЕЛЬ" VLADIMIR NABOKOV PRAISE FOR GOGOL'S "OVERCOAT" from epigraphs to book by U.R. Bowie, "GOGOL'S HEAD"

Postage Stamp Commemorating Publication of "The Overcoat" in 1842

The diver, the seeker for pearls, the man who prefers the monsters of the deep to the sunshades on the beach, will find in “The Overcoat” shadows linking our state of existence to those other states and modes that we dimly apprehend in our rare moments of irrational perception.

                                            … Vladimir Nabokov